They may equally try the Triple - Alliance and give as epilogue to the Homeric exchange of amiabilities with the German press the acceptance of German hegemony. One thing only is out of their power, and that is to remain as they are, without either an accession or a loss of strength, in a world which has completed the work of consolidation and where two great systems are henceforth to attract in their orbit or to repulse out of their sphere of influence the few remaining isolated bodies.

FRANCIS DE PRESSENSE.

From The Saturday Review. INDIAN FAMINE.

The official reports received by the secretary of state on the agricultural prospects of India make it evident that a prolonged period of stress and anxiety is before the viceroy and the local governments, and loss and suffering for the people. At the same time, there is no reason to believe that the scarcity which is at present severe, and which must become intensified, will develop into famine, if only the rains of the late autumn and winter are normal, and if the experience and energy of which an unlimited amount is at the disposal of the government are fully utilized. No work is more trying, difficult, and harassing than that of famine relief; and there is none in which the higher qualities of the English race, their humanity, courage, and devotion to duty, have been more conspicuously displayed than in the successful defence of the people of India, in past years, against death from famine. Nor, as far as we can judge, is there any part of the administration of India which wins more gratitude and admiration from all classes than the never-ceasing war waged by their rulers against th calamities caused by drought. Richard Temple, in his recently pub lished autobiography, graphically describes the warm acknowledgments of the Bengali leaders and people for the splendid services rendered by him and his officers during the Behár famine of 1874. In these days, when so many

captious critics of the Indian government labor to persuade the people that they are badly ruled and over-taxed, that the old days of the Moguls were those of plenty and prosperity, it is not without advantage to truth and loyalty that nature, by a widespread calamity, should give the lie to such criticisms, and point out that there never was a native government which attempted to combat famine effectively, or which would have succeeded had it tried, or which would have freely spent, as the English government is prepared to do, millions of treasure to save its people from starvation. The fatalism or, to call it by a truer definition, the deep religious feeling of Hindus and Muhammadans, accepted all natural calamities, such as famine or epidemic disease, as divine dispensations with which it was useless and perhaps impious to interfere; while the inhuman theory of government, which was only overthrown in Europe by the French Revolution, that the people existed for the prince, and not the prince for the people, allowed the poor, dumb masses to perish, without pity and without succor. In British India, the advice and the stern admonition of the supreme government have compelled the rulers of native states affected by famine to follow the procedure which has been adopted and enjoined for British territory; but it is very difficult to keep them up to the mark and induce them to open their treasuries for systematic relief. Famine works, on the English border of Native States, are always flooded by residents of foreign territory, whose rajas should have made provision for them. But it is impossible to refuse work to the starving whatever may be their domicile. Native chiefs are very unwilling to spend money on their people. The late Maharaja Scindhia so bitterly complained of his inability to undertake works of famine relief that the government offered him a loan of half a million at low interest, which he was compelled to accept. But I very much doubted whether this was spent on famine relief, when, after his death, it fell to me

to arrange his affairs, and I found that when he accepted the loan he had four or five millions sterling in the vaults of his palace. I was officially engaged in the attempt to relieve the terrible Kashmir famine of 1878-79, which destroyed a third of the inhabitants of that beautiful and unfortunate valley. This mortality was directly due to the criminal apathy of the maharaja and the greed of his officials, who used the distress as a means of extortion, and who bought up the stores of grain to sell at extravagant prices to the stary ing people. The Shylock methods of the patriarch Joseph during the famine in Egypt are such as always commend, themselves to the Eastern official. Unless Sir Robert Egerton, then lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, insisted on taking the transport and supply service out of the hands of the corrupt and incompetent Kashmir government, the valley would have been depopulated.

had

The most disquieting point in connection with the present scarcity is the vast area affected. When distress is local and confined to a few districts or a single province relief is comparatively easy, as it becomes a question of distribution of food grains which are abundantly supplied from other parts of the country. But this year the whole of India seems more or less affected; Bengal, the North-West Provinces, the Southern districts of the Punjab, portions of Madras and Bombay and the Central Provinces. Of the Native States, those are chiefly affected which border the central desert or the North-West Provinces, where it is probable that distress will be most severe. Fortunately this is the part of India which is most adequately provided with road and railway communication, and it is clear that the great expenditure on railway extension during recent years will be amply justified by the saving of life and revenue which will be due to the facility of grain transport on the new lines; those especially which open out Málwa in Central India, a country which has never suffered from famine and at the same

time is an overflowing granary of wheat, that, in old days, rotted in the fields, or was used for fuel owing to the impossibility of transport. The present distress will still further stim-, ulate railway construction, for every province has desirable schemes prepared and awaiting a favorable opportunity for accomplishment, and of all relief works none are so advantageous as railways. It has been found by experience that it is far better to construct large works such as railway embankments than petty ones in the several villages, such as wells, roads, and tanks; for thousands of persons of all ages and both sexes can be employed under effective supervision, so that the fair distribution of food, wages and medical relief becomes practicable. The question of the comparative urgency of railway and irrigation works in India is receiving much attention in the press, and both are admittedly of supreme importance. But the government of India has probably exercised a wise discretion in devoting its principal attention of late years to railway development, which minimizes the chief danger of famine by allowing rapid distribution of food and equalization of prices. The area now protected by canal irrigation is very large, and much more can be accomplished in provinces favorably situated such the Punjab at a comparatively small cost. But it must not be understood that irrigation is an unmixed benefit; nor again is the idea that it has a constant effect in increasing an already too dense population supported by experience. Unless constructed with great scientific skill, canals are a curse as well as a blessing; deranging the drainage of a district, water-logging the land and bringing out on the surface a saline efflorescence fatal to cultivation, while they produce a malarial fever of such persistence and malignancy as to diminish instead of increasing the population. On the Jumna

as

canals, in former years, the villages were decaying from this cause, the deaths were abnormally large and the birth-rate as abnormally low. Railway

construction, on the other hand, is an unmixed benefit, both as a preventive ágainst famine and as developing and Increasing the general prosperity of the country.

The new element-and a most interesting and important one-which has been introduced into Indian famine relief is the importation of American wheat, of which we learn from the official report several thousand tons have already reached Calcutta, and thirty thousand are believed to have been bought for that market. If the price of American wheat continues low-and it is difficult to say how far it may be affected by the defeat of Bryan and

Free Silver-the export from California may be expected to reach large proportions and form a very important addition to the food supply of India. Amer ican exporters may be trusted, without any action on the part of the Indian government, to realize the value of this new market for their produce. But whatever the extent of the calamity which is now impending, we may be confident that the government wil combat it with resolution and energy, and, so far as man can successfully meet and overcome the maleficent processes of nature, will emerge from the struggle with undiminished credit.

SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN.

Huguenot Bit of London:-In the best part of the western suburbs of the metropolis, not far from Kensington Palace, and close to Holland House, there is a curious relic of olden times called "Edwardes Square." Busy traffic and throngs of people pass by the entrance to this quiet and secluded place, which is known to comparatively few. A short, narrow street is all that divides it from the great highway that leads to Hammersmith and Putney. Omnibuses, carriages, and vehicles of all sorts crowd the road throughout the day, and the market carts for Covent Garden in the early morning leave but little time in the night free from the din of traffic. Going down the little street exactly oppo site Holland Park, on the southern side of the Hammersmith Road, we suddenly see an open square, with a vast enclosure of garden and lawn, larger than Lincoln's Inn Fields. The houses on three sides of the quadrangle are very small. The northern boundary is formed by the backs of the loftier houses of Earl's Terrace, facing Holland Park. The origin of Edwardes Square carries us back to the date of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when the expulsion of the Protestants brought so many Frenchmen to our country and caused Huguenot settlements in all parts of the kingdom, in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England. In most

of the localities the refugees were workers who transferred their skilled labor and brought wealth to the land of their adoption. It was not so in the Kensington settlement. Here it was intended to prepare a French Arcadia for families who did not seek their livelihood by manual labor or as skilled artificers, but who only required safety and peace. So Edwardes Square, with its thrifty lodgings and healthy grounds, was built and named after the Kensington family. The Huguenot refugees and their descendants have passed away, and the houses are occupied by those who enjoy the quiet grounds and the economic homes prepared for the proscribed Huguenots. But the end is near. The lease of this Edwardes estate is nearly expired, and the site of the property will in another generation be covered with larger and more valuable buildings. The Huguenot episode will all be forgotten, though known to students of history. Even Leigh Hunt, in his delightful book "The Old Court Suburb." abounding in memorials of Kensington, did not know the origin of Edwardes Square. He repeats the legend that it was built in anticipation of the conquest of England by Napoleon, "when Frenchmen could find a cheap and rural Palais Royal in an English royal suburb!"